Humans prioritize walking efficiency or walking stability based on environmental risk.

ABSTRACT: In human gait, the body's mechanical energy at the end of one step is reused to achieve forward progression during the subsequent step, thereby reducing the required muscle work. During the single stance phase, humans rely on the largely uncontrolled passive inverted pendular motion of the body to perpetuate forward motion. These passive body dynamics, while improving walking efficiency, also indicate lower passive dynamic stability in the anterior direction, since the individual will be less able to withstand a forward external perturbation. Here we test the novel hypothesis that humans manipulate passive anterior-posterior (AP) stability via active selection of step length to either achieve energy-efficient gait or to improve stability when it is threatened. We computed the AP margin of

SUBMITTER: Kulkarni A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10081767 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature